The Firenze Nightinggale
by Caccus
Summary: Two educational short stories written by a student of Renaissance-era Florentine Art History. The stories cover two periods in pre-Republican Florence's history predating the events of Assassin's Creed II and follows one curious, wide-eyed young woman from the Assassin's Brotherhood in the Levant who witnessed them all unfold.
1. Matilda of Canossa's Songbird

_The Abbey of San Benedetto in Polirone, the commune of San Benedetto Po in Northern Italy_

 _July 24, 1115_

* * *

It was late at night. A lone candle burned softly by the end table of palace bedroom. The elderly woman, propped up in bed a few hours beforehand by her attendants stopped writing on the wooden plank that she had over her legs. To stop working- it was an unusual moment for her. For her entire life, Matilda of Canossa had spent battling one fight after another. Accused of adultery and matricide at the age of 30. Forced to repel an invasion from the Holy Roman Emperor and guard the Holy Father Himself during the Investiture Controversy. Through her cunning and courage she, the youngest of the Tuscan Prince Boniface III and a woman above all would see an Emperor laid defeated at her feet.

She was the most accomplished woman in the world since Cleopatra, and she managed to do it without spreading her legs to greater men than her. She was Hera incarnate, Sisera with her peg and hammer over the corrupt influences of Emperor Henry IV. Yet age had made a decrepit ruin of the heroine's strength. She would leave with God soon, for Matilda of Canossa at the age of 69 laid motionless in bed, her legs purple, red and swollen with gout. She didn't have so much time any longer.

Which meant this that this little hooded harlot had better have a good reason for this interruption.

"Well?" Maltilda demanded to the shadows. The aged queen sighed with impatience, dipping her quill back into the inkpot and continued writing. "Get on with it."

The hooded girl dropped out of the rafters, a disgustingly sunny smile on her face.

"Sei Magnifiqo, Matilde di Canossa." The hooded girl gave a bow. "How long did you know?"

"Long enough." Matilda snapped. She didn't have time for these games. "What do you want, girl?"

The girl shuffled and smiled awkwardly, as if embarrassed. She turned her arm out and clenched her fist, and from behind a hand with its ring finger missing on it a blade slid smoothly out from under her wrist. Perhaps a lesser woman would have felt fear, but Matilda of Canossa had long since accepted her death. Instead, she felt relief. So it was all finally going to end tonight.

"Hmph. So you are one of those Assassino I have heard so much about. Have your band of drug addicts finally established a guild in my kingdom? My spies should have told me if so."

"Eheheh." The girl put her arms behind her back, the dagger sliding back into her sleeve. "Nope, La signora. I've come from Siria, from the Brotherhood in the Levant. While travelling, I learned all about you- I'm a big fan, Signoria. Did you really rally your troops against the Imperials and fight on the front lines in Val d'Enza?"

"When the historians finish write my tale," Matilda said through gritted teeth, "You can read all about it." The girl's face fell and for an insane moment, Matilda almost felt bad for treating her so harshly. Despite the girl's air-headed disposition, she didn't seem all that different from when Matilda was her age. The elderly woman had to specifically remind herself that this little bird was her to kill her.

Ha. Kill a dying old woman. What a joke.

Matilda of Canossa sighed, reaching out to dip her quill and scratch out a mistake she made. "Well, if you're going to kill me, little nightingale, do it after I finish my work."

"...And that day will never come, Signoria, will it?" The assassin said softly, approaching with muted footsteps.

"Aye, for those of import like I," Matilda replied, writing furiously. The aching in her joints was getting worse. Death would be a sweet release at this point. "Have a duty to God and kingdom. A little songbird like yourself could scarcely understand."

The hooded girl smiled. Leaning in, the girl pointed out a word scrawled in ink. "You misspelled, 'Rapacious' in 'rapacious peasantry', Signoria."

The elderly woman gave the girl a cold glare, before going back and crossing out the word.

"Signoria... it is true that I'm no great queen like yourself. You lord over the entirety of Tuscany answering only to God and the Emperor. I was not even lord over myself when I was born. Nor was my mother. I was a slave." The girl tilted her head, letting her dark hair cross over her eyes. "But surely you know that anyone- even the youngest daughter of a vassal prince- can bring down cities, kingdoms and empires."

"The 'Youngest daughter of a vassal prince', " Matilda repeated. That was referring to her, of course. "Is a far cry from a daughter of a slave, little songbird."

"Sì, Signoria." The girl smiled, cocking her head to the side in what the girl must have thought was cute. "I would never dream of laying an empire low like yourself. But a medium sized kingdom like your own... would be more fitting to my station, no?"

Matilda of Canossa turned to glare at the hooded girl, the fury that was missing from her heart for so long, rising up in her gut in a familiar heat. The elderly woman, with trembling hands, grabbed the assassin girl as hard as she could by the forearm, drawing the younger girl closer in.

"My death will not be the end of March of Tuscany, little bird." The Countess uttered, shaking. "Tell your paymasters, be it the Spaniards or the Patriarchs of Anatolia that Tuscany- will not fall!"

At this, the girl reached out, gently prying off Matilda's hands and embraced the elderly woman. Matilda couldn't help but notice the soft floral notes weaved into the girl's clothes. A Syrian flower. Hibiscus. She reminded- the songbird reminded her of her very own Beatrice, dead at childbirth. The Tuscan princess who was never to be. Ah! God! Ah, Beatrice! A lone tear ran down the widow's face. She sunk back into her silks, letting the fabrics caress her old, wrinkled flesh. The wetness she felt at her back must have meant that the assassin had done her deed. It was finally over.

"Sadly, Signoria... that is precisely why I am here. The Kingdom of Tuscany will fall, and the Assassini del Levante will make sure of it."

"W..." Matilda felt a great, sudden weakness wash over her, like she had never felt before. Blood rose to her throat instead of words. Is this what ordinary people felt? Powerlessness? "..hy?"

"I... my master, believes that the seeds of freedom are here, Signoria. That the people of Tuscany are ready to seize their destinies with their own hands."

"Their... destinies?" Matilda croaked out.

"Like you, Signoria. Like I." The girl sighed. "We all know that the Muslims will take Konstantine eventually. They cannot be stopped. So when all of the knowledge of the Greeks and all of the lofty ideas of the republic of Roma flee to Italia- greatness from freedom will be borne."

"A... republic." Matilda finished, closing her eyes.

"Yes, Signoria. A country for its people."

"A disaster... or... a fraud." Matlida coughed out. It was getting harder to breathe. But somehow... she felt better. Like a great blockage in her veins had been removed. "You think a drawing... a few lots... makes a country for its people? What a joke... what a..."

"Yes, it will fail." The girl nodded solemnly. "The powerful will stay powerful. The weak will be weak. And eventually a few men will rule over this beautiful country once more. But it must be done, my master says. It must be tried. For freedom. For truth."

The girl reached out and grasped Matilda's shirveled, cooling hands within her warm, petite ones. After a tight squeeze, the girl turned her hands down to take the wooden pallet from Matilda. On it, the letter that Matilda was writing to the Holy Roman Emperor concerning her successor upon her death. "I will change your letter here to recommend Count Radobo the German as your successor for steward of Florence instead of whoever this is."

"Dio ci aiuti... Radobo... is a fool. "

"Yes, he will fail." The hooded girl replied, reaching out with the quill to carefully cross out the first name and start writing in the incompetent count's name instead. "And a new Republic of Tuscany will rise in place."

The girl turned to Matilda of Canossa with a start, reaching out to pat her over the hands. "Ah, your part is done, Signoria. Thank you for all of you have done for Italy. For everything that you have done for the world, Grazie." The songbird's eyes grew ever softer. "Rest now, Matilda."

Matilda closed her eyes.

A destiny for her people...

She suddenly lunged out and gripping the girl's arms as tightly as she could with her failing hands. The abrupt motion was a bit too much for her and she lurched forwards, coughing up a mouthful of blood. A thin line of scarlet trickled downwards from her pale, bloodless lips. The little songbird held her, a concerned look underneath that hood.

My part? Done?

"Like Hell... it is..." Matilda muttered through bloodied teeth. "Maltilda... la Gran Contessa.. am no one's pawn. Give me the quill, girl. I will recommend Radobo myself."

The hooded girl, as if in awe, slowly turned the wooden pallet over, back to Matilda's lap. She couldn't feel the gout in her legs anymore, nor the cold wetness from the hole in her back, nor the thin, ever-growing trail of blood that was tracing a line from her lips to frame her chin. All she could see now was this letter. This wretched letter, which would destroy her entire life's accomplishments.

"Guide my hands, child. I will lead and you will follow."

It was morning now. Only when they were done, and the letter was finished, sealed and left outside of her locked bedroom doors where her attendants would send it off long before they would realize her death- did the Countess of Contessa, the Vice-Queen of Italy, Defender of the Faith and Imperial Vicar to Henry the Fourth and Henry the Fifth- finally breathe her last and rest.

The hooded girl took a step onto the windowsill. She looked back at the late Countess. And what the hooded girl saw made her laugh just a little. And she was gone.

* * *

Matilda of Canossa was a powerful widow who was the youngest child and daughter of Boniface III of Tuscany, the most powerful Italian Prince of the time and a key vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor. During a crisis between Pope Gregory and Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, she acted as a key ally for Gregory VII, remaining loyal to the pope despite Henry IV's overlord status over her. She won linchpin battles against Imperial Forces, eventually allying with Henry' IV's sons to eventually defeat the emperor once and for all. So great was the Vatican's respect for her courage and loyalty to the church that to this day she is only one of three women to be interred in Saint Peter's Basilica as well as the first non-Pope, non-Saint at all.

After her death, her successor Count Raldobo the German was so incompetent that he got himself killed by a mob three years into his rule, upon which the beginnings of the Republic of Florence began to form. Matilda's holdings included a large swath of Northern Italy that was known as the March of Tuscany. From this kingdom was essentially born many city-state republics. Though the Italian city-states republics were a bit of a unique case that wasn't necessarily replicated elsewhere in Europe, by extension of this example, it was certainly possible for a monarch to convert his kingdom into a republic simply by drumming up enough popular support for such a governmental shift with his incompetence. Though, as I mentioned in the short story above, these Republics were usually short-lived in their efficacy, if not their title. Around a hundred years or so after its establishment the Republic of Florence essentially became two familial camps rigging the elections against each other, and a few decades after that, it was just one familial camp rigging the elections- the Medici- while their enemies groveled in the dirt like the losers that they were.


	2. The Dome of Santa Maria Del Fiore

_Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, Dome Construction Site_

 _Florence, Italy, 1423._

* * *

He knew he should have stayed clear of her from the moment he saw her. At least because she was a heathen. What would _mamma_ had thought if she saw him now, flirting so dangerously with the fate of his soul? He saw her out of the corner of his eye at first, a pretty songbird, drifting through the market at midday. Asking anyone about everything she could. She was obviously a foreigner, a Muslim and by a coin's toss, a spy for the Sultan. But he was drawn to her. And besides, his roommate Barnazo spent his days wandering the market buying painted boys to bed and Niccolo enjoyed stealing used laundry from the Convents.1 Surely God would think that a crush on a pretty tan girl wasn't so bad.

When he saw her again, she was behind him, on the rooftop of the Nave of the Florence Cathedral.

"What's that?" She had asked of him, peering over his shoulder. He glanced up from his plans to see a hooded girl looking closely over the preliminary designs that Master Brunelleschi had given him. Instinctively he rolled them up, and the girl turned her head down, crestfallen. "Aw..."

"What... who are you? How did you get here?" He asked, looking around for any of his laborers to take this strange girl away. None of the workers were at their posts.

 _Cazzo._

Probably getting drunk again on their lunch wine. Master Brunelleschi had strangely fallen violently ill, which meant the day-to-day management fell to his supposed coadjutor, Master Ghiberti. Though an accomplished artist in his own right and a established member from the _Arti Fabbri_ , the Guild of Goldsmithing, Master Ghiberti had been absent for most of the first three years of Dome's construction that had taken place. In fact, since Master Brunelleschi's strange illness, this was the first time anyone had seen Ghiberti in weeks.

His workers had taken advantage of that and had told Master Ghiberti to send up regular wine to their workstations instead of the diluted drink that Master Brunelleschi usually provided them while they were on the job. By God as his witness, he would kick them off of the dome itself if he ever caught them doing that again, if they didn't stumble blind drunk off of the scaffolding first.

" _Sei Magnifico_!" The girl said, drifting from workstation to workstation. "Woa!" The girl reached down and hefted a chain link in her hands that was larger than her head. "What a huge chain!"

"Hey! Don't wander around like that!" It was dangerous up here. They were on the roof of the nave of the Florence Cathedral- the main body of the church. Though they were not as high up as the tower to the South or the unfinished Dome to the north, they were still a good hundred feet above ground. He had already lost ten good men over the last three years. He wasn't going to let some girl flit around to break her neck for all the churchgoers below to see. "Stop- moving!"

"Hey, tell me..." The girl stopped, gazing out at the view of Florence around them. She turned to look at him from under her hood. Her eyes shone in sharp relief to her dark, Eastern features. He felt his heart skip a beat. "Is this the tallest building in all of _Italia_?"

"N-no..." Surely not. "That belltower in _Pisa_ that they finished a while back, I think is a bit taller. As is the _Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore_ in Roma."

The girl gave a small sigh, and the man felt a stupid urge not to disappoint. "J-just wait a few years, though! In time... this will be the tallest building in all of _Italia_. Maybe the world!"

He swept a hand upwards at the unfinished dome. "No cheating with towers like that French monstrosity or the likes either. This Dome will reach Heaven itself. Look! See the ingenuity of Master Brunelleschi here? Even the great Romans when building the Pantheon in _Roma_ was built by filling up a full dome of dirt and silver coins and laying the dome all around it. But Master Brunelleschi, he instead built a smaller dome instead of that dome and..."

He droned on and on to that girl about the glories of Rome, and of how the wretched, vapid French had managed to bungle their shared Latin heritage in favor of those disgusting skeletons they called cathedrals and churches. He sung so many praises of Master Brunelleschi that the songbird felt fit to tease him about it, though his embarrassment was not enough to temper his passion. He talked until the sun went down, and despite himself, made the girl promise she would come and visit again. And every time she did, he would show her more and more of her work. "Look, songbird. See our Mediterranean heritage in these great domes. We are not only recreating the great Empire of _Roma_ in all of its glory- we are building off of it! Past it!"

And when the Dome was finally finished and people came from all corners of the earth to marvel at the tallest dome that would stand until _Roma_ herself would erect the Dome of St. Peter's Church, he thought that was that would be the last of the songbird's interests. She got to see the greatest mountain of all of _Italia_ rise up before her very eyes. The _Duomo_ would be Florence's crowning achievement for centuries to come.

But still, she kept on coming. Though she disappeared for weeks, even months at a time, coming back wearing strange clothes and smelling of exotic spices, she always came back, flitting once more through those markets, telling tall tales of kingdoms and countries he had never even heard of before. He even had the honor to walk her through another one of his constructions for the great Cosimo di Medici, this time headed by one of Ghiberti's talented students, Michelozzo. He walked her through the more ordinary, plain design of the palace of the incredibly powerful Cosimo di Medici, and of how it spoke of the man's cunning and wisdom. Where the Classical revival was starting to come in full force, Cosimo had laid low and let the lesser princes raise their monuments to their vanity. But inside the Medici palace was a paradise of elegance.." a house that is — as much in the handsomeness of the ceilings, the height of the walls, smooth finish of the entrances and windows, number of chambers and salons, elegance of the studies, worth of the books, neatness and gracefulness of the gardens..."

It was a while before he realized it. In those years, he had worked with masters and laid hands in some of the greatest works that man would ever see. And it warmed his heart to see the state of Florence ever grow to new heights. He prayed in the Church of Santa Maria Novella, crossing Alberti's new facade and taking no small pleasure in seeing none of that horrid French architecture that even Master Brunelleschi could not fully escape in the construction of the dome. He saw the return of the Romanesque buildings, those structures that he had studied so closely from the times of the great Charlemange, when the French had not yet fully lost their minds. And he never realized that through them all, he always told the little songbird about detail he could, in every step in that way.

He was an old man by then. And the songbird had not aged a day.

They were standing on the roof of the Nave of the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore once more.

The city was in an uproar, for Lorenzo di Medici, heir apparent to the House of Medici, had just been killed. Or some said that he had survived, but been grievously injured. All agreed that his brother Giuliano had been cut down in Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, in the very church itself. When he had heard of the tragedy, he felt anger. But when he heard of where it took place, a great pit of fear wormed its way into his gut.

"All this time," He whispered to the hooded girl. "Were you just using me? So you learn the inner workings of the Cathedral? So could finally have your chance to strike? _Assassino_!"

The hooded girl lowered her head, silent. The old man sobbed quietly. The mob swept through the streets below, calling for blood, chanting for their next victim's name. Already the vigilantes had claimed two members of the Pazzi Conspiracy, and now it sounded like their bloodlust was targeted at the Archbishop next. "Tell me I'm wrong." He begged. "Please."

"I... failed." The girl said, smiling. She stretched her hand out and a blade slid quietly outwards. Light traces of blood stained its edge. With a flick, her dagger disappeared back into her sleeve. "I could only protect one brother. The Templars claimed his brother Giuliano, but the Lorenzo di Medici _il Magnifico_ will live."

The old man looked up. The relief in his eyes was palpable. He reached out, his hands trembling.

"When I first came to you," The songbird said, "I came to you wanting to see this world, this city, and all of its beauty. You showed me that. Grazie, Signor." She held out her hand and the old man took it. "Come. I want to show you something too." And with surprising strength, she picked the old man up in an arm. She started carrying him to the wall of the Dome. And when she reached it, she started climbing.

It was sunset when they finally reached the top, at the base of the lantern crown. The air up here was cold and harsh, and the old man couldn't help but tremble at the chill cutting its way into his tunic.

"Ah..." He gasped. And he saw all of the glory of Florence around him. He had never been up at the very top of the dome. Once the dome had completed, a different lead architect had been assigned to construct the lantern that crowned the dome. He rarely had to risk his life climbing up on the scaffolding anyways like his laborers. He couldn't believe that out of all the years he had worked on this dome- he had never stopped to take a look around like this.

"You made this," The songbird said gently. "See, _Signor_? Isn't it beautiful?"

"I... did I?" The old man sighed. The wind didn't feel so cold anymore. Maybe he could just die up here, in the songbird's arms. That wouldn't be so bad.

"The greatest monument in all of _Italia_."

"No." The old man said, chuckling.

"Hm?"

"It won't be the greatest." The old man insisted. "There will be men greater and more ambitious than even Master Brunelleschi. Monuments will rise will surpass even this.. I believe it will. "

The songbird tilted her head to look at the old man, curious. A question without words.

Why?

"I have faith." The old man sighed, content. "Leave me up here, little songbird. Let me watch the glories of _Firenze_ grow greater by God's side in heaven."

"Heh." The girl smiled. "See them for yourself, on Earth. I will show you something else."

"Huh?" The old man sat up a bit in the girl's arms as she stood up, teetering over the lip of the Dome's lantern.

"Just hold on," The girl said, before jumping off of the lantern's crown. She hit one of the ribs of the dome sliding, accelerating closer and closer to the dome's edge. The old man clung to the songbird, too terrified to scream. "Hey, hey, why so scared?" The girl teased, crouching lower and lower as the angle of the slope she was sliding on grew steeper. With a start, the two of them burst through a flock of roosting pigeons at the very lip of the dome.

As she turned over in the sky, carrying the old man in her arms, she said only one thing:

"Have faith."

They fell.

And slammed with meteoric velocity into a convenient wagon full of hay.

* * *

1 Strangely enough, there was almost as much worrying by troubled bankers that they wouldn't go to hell for Usury as there was worrying that men would go to hell for sleeping with other men half their age.

2 Brunelleschi famously feigned illness in order to expose his longtime rival Ghiberti as a useless partner in the construction of the Dome of the Florence Cathedral. Ghiberti had spent most of his time on his other projects.

3 One of the main innovations to protect against hoop failure (a structural failure where a dome would collapse outwards at all sides at once) was an iron chain that wrapped around the dome during its construction.

4 The Notre Dame was the aforementioned "French Monstrosity". A prime example of Medieval Gothic architecture, which the whole of Italia thoroughly rejected. It was reminiscent of the Northern invaders, for one, and two they thought themselves good enough to ignore the crude and barbaric architecture of the Franks and claimed themselve to be the more conscious revivalists of the Classical period.

5 Brunelleschi died just before construction of the lantern that would crown his dome would be started. The dome is an engineering marvel is generally considered to be his greatest masterpiece and one of Florence's great national treasures, along with Michelangelo's David and other artistic masterpieces of the time.

6 A quote from Galeazzo Maria Sforza about his entertainment at the Palazzo Medici

7 The Pazzi Conspiracy was a plot by Pope Sixtus and the second-most powerful family in Florence, the Pazzi, to assassinate Lorenzo di Medici and Giuliano di Medici, the two brother rulers of Florence. They succeeded only in murdering Giuliano as the brother prayed in the Cathedral of Florence, upon which a mob of people rounded up the members who participated in the attempt, including the Archbishop of Pisa and executed them, hanging the archbishop out the window of the town hall, sparking a two-year war between the Papal States and Florence.


End file.
